Dangerous Substances

Published

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 10:31:37 +1000

Content

The ACT presently regulates the handling of chemicals and explosives as “dangerous substances” under the Dangerous Substances Act 2004 and its subordinate laws. This includes chemicals which may be regulated in other jurisdictions as hazardous chemicals.

The Dangerous Substances (General) Regulation 2004 sets out the requirements which apply to chemicals in the ACT in place of those from Chapter 7 (Hazardous Chemicals) of the Model Work Health and Safety Regulations which have been adopted in other jurisdictions. These include keeping a register of dangerous substances, making safety data sheets readily accessible, and ensuring that the dangerous substances are correctly classified, labelled and stored.

Some of these requirements will be different to those applying in another State or Territory.

For example, the ACT legislation refers to the classes and divisions of the Australian Code for the Transport of Dangerous Goods by Road and Rail (the Australian Dangerous Goods Code), rather than the hazard categories of the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (the GHS), and as a result, the placard and manifest quantity thresholds are different.

In addition, the ACT legislation requires the registration of certain premises at which dangerous substances are stored or handled, where no equivalent requirement would apply in another State or Territory.

Information about dangerous substances which was previously published on the WorkSafe ACT website has been moved to the Access Canberra website. The Navigation menu on the right-hand side of this page provides links to the current information on the Access Canberra website.